Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), who abruptly resigned as head of Tea Party group FreedomWorks, brought in an assistant with a gun in an apparent coup attempt at the group, according to a report in the Washington Post.

On Sept. 4, the assistant escorted out Matt Kibbe, president and CEO, and Adam Brandon, the senior vice president, accusing them of ethical misconduct. Others were put on administrative leave, but the Washington Post report says that when they started crying, they got their jobs back.

The report is the latest account of a breakdown of the influential conservative organization that has financially backed the Tea Party movement.

Armey, in exchange for resigning, will receive $8 million from the group -- paid out in annual $400,000 installments -- for consulting fees. Mother Jones obtained his departure memo, in which he specified that he wanted his name removed from all of the group's materials and asked them not to use his booklet.

5. Ya beat me to it, but Gawker's version is more entertaining:

POLIDICKS
How a Former Congressman Staged a Literal Armed Coup of a Tea Party Group, With a Gun and Everything

Max Read

In September, Dick Armey, the former Republican House Majority Leader, wanted to re-assert control of FreedomWorks, the influential Tea Party political action group of which he was chair. So he did what any old, paranoid Republican would do: he brought a guy with a handgun in to fire everyone.

Armey had accused FreedomWorks' president, Matt Kibbe, of "improperly using FreedomWorks staff resources to produce a book," an accusation that, if true, would jeopardize its tax status as a nonprofit. And bizarrely, he thought the best way to address his concern was with the implied threat of firearm violence, according to The Washington Post's Amy Gardner:

“The partnership came to a crashing end when Armey marched into FreedomWorks's office Sept. 4 with his wife, Susan, executive assistant Jean Campbell and the unidentified man with the gun at his waist - who promptly escorted Kibbe and Brandon out of the building.” ....

"Bizarre" doesn't really even begin to describe Armey's Very Tea Party coup. Immediately after Kibbe was escorted from the building, Armey attempted to fire three employees, only to change his mind when they burst into tears. Armey's wife Susan "passed her husband notes that several employees assumed contained suggestions on what to say"; on a conference call, he demanded more support for Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin.

Ultimately Armey was paid to leave: Richard J. Stephenson, "a reclusive Illinois millionaire" who seems to have donated $12 million to FreedomWorks just before the election, is paying the former congressman a fuck-off fee of $400,000 a year for the next 20 years, and Kibbe has returned as president. The guy with the gun remains unidentified.